UAE: Expat survives two heart attacks, stroke in few days

Abu Dhabi - Doctors placed him on veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine for eight days

An Abu Dhabi resident had a miraculous escape from death after he suffered not one but two heart attacks and a stroke in few days.

Indian national Hari Kuttappan, 58, is diabetic and has a family history of heart disease, but he always led a healthy life where he would ensure he ate a nutritious diet and exercised daily.

He also would undergo a medical assessment every two months.

In 2014, during one such checkup, Kuttappan had a stent put into one of his blocked arteries after which he went back to his daily routine of work and exercise without a problem.

Early this year, Kuttappan was diagnosed with another blocked artery, which was again treated with stent insertion. But a few days after the invasive procedure, he collapsed in his bathroom, and after regaining consciousness threw up a little. His wife called an ambulance who took him to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to be treated for his first mild heart attack.

Kuttappan was recovering well and was ready to be discharged when suddenly he experienced a simultaneous stroke and heart attack. Doctors at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi rushed him to the coronary angiography suite, re-opened his heart artery, and placed him on a veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) machine for eight days. He was in the hospital for a month, until April 22, for recovery.

Explaining the case, Dr Hussam Ghalib, staff physician in the Heart and Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, said, “The stent that we had placed in his heart to keep the artery open had closed off again and he immediately suffered another heart attack within days of the first one. This is a rare and almost always fatal event.

“Because his heart muscle had undergone two successive heart attacks and was therefore extremely weak, he was in a state called ‘pre-cardiac-arrest’ which means that he was minutes away from immediate death. Therefore, at the time of re-opening his heart arteries, our multidisciplinary team decided to pre-emptively place him on a VA-ECMO machine, which is an artificial heart that would pump blood to the rest of the organs while his own heart recovered. His heart recovered and he came off of the VA-ECMO machine within eight days and was discharged from hospital (to continue rehabilitation) within a month," said Dr Ghalib.

“Kuttappan had two successive major heart attacks and a stroke. More importantly, he got very close to having a full cardiac arrest (which is when the heart stops). It is the medical equivalent of a miracle that he is alive,” he added.

Kuttappan said, “I owe my life to my care team at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. They looked after me and my family and I feel like I have been reborn. I know that I will not be able to do the same strenuous activities and exercises that I used to do before the heart attacks. But I follow a programme given to me by my doctors, and I eat healthy [food] and go for walks daily to maintain my health.”